But when Middlesbrough Football Club pays tribute to eight former players, they will be remembering men who were heroes in the truest sense of the word.

Former players Andy Jackson, Harry Cook, Don McLeod, Archie Wilson, Bobby Atherton, Dick Wynn, David Murphy and Ralph Arran each laid down their lives for their country during the world wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.

Now Boro are set to give formal recognition of their ultimate sacrifice ahead of the forthcoming Armistice Day on November 11.

Each of the eight will receive a permanent memorial at the Riverside via a place on the Boro Brick Road that will record them as “Boro players and war heroes”.

The football club will also lay a wreath next to the Ayresome Park gates that all will have known well when serving the club before answering their country’s call.

Boro supporter John Wilson, who played a role in Boro’s decision to honour their war heroes, said: “I’m delighted that MFC is honouring the courage and bravery of the former players who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their country.

“The fact that the ceremony is taking place on the 90th anniversary of the armistice provides us all with the ideal opportunity to pay a fitting tribute to our fallen Boro heroes.”

When Andy Jackson was killed on the front line in France in 1917 Boro and Scotland lost a player who many believed would go on to establish himself as one of the greats of the game. He played 137 times for Boro.

Middlesbrough-born Harry Cook was a sergeant in the 12th Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, He was just 22 when he died in France in January 1917, one of the thousands of Allied soldiers killed on the Somme.

Former Celtic and Scotland right-back Don McLeod was a Boro team-mate of Jackson and Cook until his retirement from the playing side in 1914, having made 148 appearances for the club. He was killed in action in Dozinghem, Belgium, in October 1917.

Another Scot, Archie Wilson was another whose life and Boro career was tragically cut short by the events of the Great War. He was just 26 when he lost his life in 1916.

Another who lost his life in the First World War was Wales international Bobby Atherton, a Boro captain who had made 66 appearances for the club before leaving for Chelsea in 1906. Atherton died when his submarine was torpedoed in 1917.

Sergeant Dick Wynn survived the war, only to pass away in September 1919 after an operation on a war injury in Etaples, south of Bologne.

South Bank-born David Anthony Murphy did not return home from the Second World War. He died in September 1944 in Italy during the Allied advance from Ancona to Rimini.

Although he was not officially on Boro’s books, goalkeeper Ralph Arran guested for the club from South Bank Juniors eight times during the Second World War. An Army corporal, he lost his life in Belgium in October 1944.

Many other Boro players served the country during the two world wars including Wilf Mannion, George Hardwick and Micky Fenton, while Boro and England trainer Harold Shepherdson MBE was an Army staff sergeant PT instructor.